Webquest Standards and Objectives

The state core standard for my webquest is:
Utah State Core 2nd grade Standard 1: Students will develop a sense of self: Describe and adopt behaviors for health and safety: Explain the importance of a balanced diet.

Learning Objectives:
The students will explore and learn the basic food groups, what nutrients our body gains from eating those foods, and why they are part of a balanced diet.
The students will be able to explain the benefits from eating healthy and how to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Task:
Student's will use what they learn about healthy foods and nutrients to create their own food pyramid and a meal plan for one day with their favorite foods and maintaining a balanced diet.

WebQuest Ideas

I really like the idea of Webquests and using them in the classroom. I think they are a great way to teach children about technology and how to use it is a productive and appropriate way. Also they are a great way to motivate and stimulate learning that is centered on the child's needs and interests. When children can question and discover for themselves, learning is more meaningful to them.
The grade I want to do is Second Grade
Some ideas I have to create a webquest are:
Weather--the children can discover the different forms of weather in different places of the world. Also maybe how weather effects us and the way we live.
Animals--the children can explore and discover the characteristics and life patterns of the local wildlife and plants and how they change and grow. The children can conduct an online scavenger hunt of the different plants and animals and learn more about the world around them.
Safety--the children will explore different safety habits and the importance of being safe. They can learn and explore different precautions to take in certain situations and possibly how to prevent bad things from happening.

I don't really know if these will work, but they are just some ideas that I came up with?

Web Evaluations

For this assignment, I evaluated several different websites. One of the websites I evaluated was the school web site for Edith Bowen Lab School. As I looked at the website, I tried to take into consideration if I had a child attending the school and what information I would want on the site. I found the site very professional and user friendly. The site wasn't too complicated and all the information was credible and useful. There were links to tell parents about PTA activities, a calendar of events, and many other things that I would find useful as a parent. I rated this website as a credible and good source.
Another web site I evaluated was a website to find lesson plans. This site was Discovery Education; Classroom Resources. I thought this was going to be a pretty good site because discovery is a international company with a good reputation. The information on the site was useful and pretty fun to look at. For the lesson they provided several alternative resources to add to the lesson. They provided links to videos and other fun things to enhance the lesson. Also at the end of each lesson they have a section called Academic Standards where they provide links for the research and standards of education. The site was easy to navigate and it provided a printer-friendly version for teachers to print out the lessons and use them. I found this site extremely helpful and one that I will probably use.
One of the site we had to look up was an informational website that contained elementary content. One of the first things I thought of that I learned in elementary was Utah history so I looked up an informational website on Utah history. The site that I found was actually published by the Utah Department of Community and Culture and also supported by Utah State Government. It was a pretty great site and it had this link to Utah History for Kids where children could go on and learn about facts, play games, and discover Utah. All of the facts were correct and interesting to learn. I actually had a good time playing the games and learning more about Utah. The site didn't take long to load and didn't have any necessary fluff anywhere. I really liked this site.
The final site that I evaluated was a student interactive site that they can use to enhance learning. I choose a site that I was already familiar with and totally love! It is the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives. It is a really great website that supports what children learn in math. This was actually created by Utah State University in 1999 and is continually updated about once a year. This is a great source that makes learning fun and enjoyable for students. I am most definitely going to use this site in my teaching.

Spreadsheets

To be totally honest, I would have to say that me and spreadsheets had quite the love-hate relationship. I never liked using spreadsheets and yet I always seemed to have to use them in one way or another. Well, now I realize that my loathing for spreadsheets was only because I didn't really know how to use them so to me they were confusing and frustrating. Now I proudly can say that I have been taught and converted to the world of spreadsheets. Spreadsheets are actually pretty fun and not that difficult to use. I can use them in several places in my own teaching. I most definitely can and will use them for grading and record keeping. Using the tables and graphs I can observe each child's progress and the progress of the whole class. I can used the information to possibly see the areas that the children are not understanding and improve myself as a teacher. Spreadsheets are good for collecting and analyzing data so not only can I use it for my own purposes, I can teach my students to use it as well. Like in class we did several experiments and recorded the data on a spreadsheet. We were able to see all of the data and use the information to make prediction and conjectures about the experiment. It was a great teaching tool and a way to give more responsibility back to the student. I can use this method in my own class particularly in the areas of math and science. If I can show my students how to use spreadsheets and how beneficial they really are then I can give them a better experience then I had.
Also we used Google Docs to give each other surveys. We had a lot of fun in class doing these and I could definitely use this in my classroom. The students could use this on different projects to survey other classmates and see the results. Also we could use this in math to work on percentages, graphing, and analyzing results. These two tools can be very helpful in the classroom and can help the children learn skills on the computer.